<p>A lot of the schools that I have been looking at are known for being big party schools that are largely controlled by Greek life. Some of these schools have almost 40% of students involved in a fraternity or sorority. This culture is starting to cause my interest in some of these schools to wane a little bit because I am not sure if I want to be involved in Greek life.</p>
<p>I applied EA to UMD and was wondering what the social life is like on campus in general and how dominant greek life is? From my campus visit, I didn't get the impression that UMD was like some of those other schools, but I really would appreciate some honest insight so I can make an educated decision.</p>
<p>I can’t speak for other majors, but at least within engineering, physics, and math the social scene is not dominated by any one group. Instead you tend to see people gravitate in small chunks toward common interests and/or follow friends’ interests . From a numbers perspective this makes sense, there are 26000 undergrads, Greeks maybe comprise at most 1/5th of that. Because of this small group focus, people tend to be involved in 2-3 groups/activities at any given time (for better or worse)</p>
As a motivated student and also very social person, I’ll spit some truth at you that you will either accept after my post, or realize a month or so into your first semester. Party life is dominated by the greek scene. There are only 3 bars, which are mostly all OK, and get tiring real fast. College Park is a ghetto, so there isnot really the oppurtunity for house parties, aside from fraternity satellite houses. If you want to party, join a fraternity. Fraternity men, aside from some frats like fiji and delta chi, are made up of pretty studious guys who also like to drink/smoke on the weekend. Balance is important. I would rush and check out the houses.
How hard is it to balance a pre med path with being in a frat? Do the potential advantages (like getting help on courses you may be struggling with from senior guys) outweigh the potential issues (i.e. time commitment)? For example, if you had to do it again, would you be in a frat or not when it comes to doing your best in classes.
Personally, I’m miserable without a social life and I tend to do as well, if not better when I have something to do on weekend nights, or the occasional thursday night. Course help won’t be much, but test banks and study buddies can help. To be honest, you need to know yourself. If you’ll be pulled to go out every occassion, it’l probably be bad. If you can resist going out most thursday and tuesday nights, you’ll be fine. Look, if you like drinking, partying and hooking up with girls, being in a fraternity at UMD is the only real way to accomplish these things. At at a school like Towson, you don’t need to be greek for a party life, but here you do. Take 12 creds during pledging.
Greek life dominates social life? Sure, Greeks throw some awesome parties, no doubt. But let’s not overstate things. There are over 26,000 undergrads and approx 15% are involved in Greek life. I’d hardly call that domination.
Maryversity’s statement is true to some extent. The reason the whole 85% stat is misleading is because a lot of kids at maryland are simply not into party life. If you are interested and partake, then it’l seem like everyone around you is greek. I’m sure there are other ways that less drinking and social people have fun on weekends, i.e playing video games, coding, etc, but there is simply no other outlet to party outside of Greek life, and so many of my friends understood this. They came into college thinking they could get by without being a fraternity brother or sorority sister, but they they had the realization that they had to join.
This is interesting conversation to me bc my daughter and I just had this talk. Like maryv said, the actual percentage in Greek life is low. However, according to my daughter, who is very involved in Greek life, it is exactly as seekers says. My daughter says she only sees fellow greek life people. This surprised me because there are sooo many other students. If you’re in a frat or a sorority, that’s pretty much the only people you interact with. I think it sounds limiting, but she loves her greek community and the many, many parties that comes with it.
Wow…posting from my phone was difficult! Sorry for all the grammatical errors in above post. My point was that if you are in a frat/sorority, I think you would say the party social scene is in fact dominated by greek life. Seekere, I’m assuming you are in a frat. Are you enjoying it? I remember that you were concerned a bit by housing on north campus. How’s it working out for you?
Thanks a lot everyone for your input. What I’m picking up is that partying is there at UMD if you want it, but you have to join a fraternity to get it. On the other hand though, it seems like the other 85% of students who aren’t involved in Greek life find plenty to do to have fun (hanging out, lower scale parties, etc.)
@terpmom… I was lucky enough to have a good amount of friends in respectable fraternities and enough credits to pledge, so I got that elusive freshman fall semester bid and took it. Life is great- I’m a lot happier than I was in high school. In regards to the north campus question… yeah I’m happy, but I realized it doesn’t matter. I would never want to live on north campus again, but I definitely don’t mind it. Once classes start, you realize that you’re too busy to care about the small stuff. @pacollegekid… you definitely should rush. There are fraternities for nearly everybody…you’ll find your group.
@seekere At the moment I’m pretty firmly against it. I hear a lot of negative things about a lot of forced activity in frats. However, If I were able to find one that wasn’t all about absolutely ridiculous partying I might consider it. Just have heard a lot of bad things from people I know who are in frats and things online and it really just doesn’t fit my personality.
@seekere, I’m glad that it’s worked out for you. College is supposed to be four of the best years of your life. Enjoy and I hope you do well. Finding the right balance between studying and socializing can be rough, but you’ll figure that all out. @pacollegekid97, if greek life isn’t for you, I have no doubt that you will find a great group of friends to hang out with. One of the many plusses of going there is the fact that there are so many students and a large amount of groups and clubs to join. There is something for everyone. Best of luck to you!